The Westgate Labs Worm Count Kit is an essential tool that allows an easy worm egg count that is easy to use and understand. Recommended by many vets, a correct worming programme can help to prolong the efficiency of worming drugs, leading to a better state of health for your horse. Each kit provides all that is needed to take a sample and send off to the laboratory for testing, including a voucher for the laboratory test. Each test is for one test on one horse.

Tapeworm eggs are encased meaning that it will not pick up any tapeworm eggs. This will only test for roundworm and redworm eggs. To test for tapeworm you will need to speak to your vet to do a blood test, or use the Equisal tapeworm test and send of a sample of saliva.

Red worm

3rd Dec 2016

Lisa Papworth

VioVet Customer Since: July 2012

From: Bedfordshire, United Kingdom

Does this testing kit test for Red Worm ?

Danielle Cousins BSc Hons, E-SQP

Brand Manager

Hi Lisa,

Faceal egg counts will identify the presence and level of adult large and small red worm although they cannot give any indication of the level of encysted larvae (encysted small redworm) in the gut wall. It is the encysted larvae that can cause serious problems when they emerge from the gut lining in spring so they should be targeted in the winter months, after the frosts set in and the adults.

Your horse's results may come back with a low egg count, but targeting encysted redworm is still recommended in winter months as you won't know the extent of the encysted larval population. At any other time of the year, a low result would mean you do not need to target roundworm.

Typically between November-February, target encysted larval stages of small redworm with a Moxidectin product (eg. Equest). This will also kill botfly larvae. Alternatively, use a five day course of Febendazole (eg. Panacur) but this will not target any botfly larvae.

I hope this is helpful!

Worming five year olds

3rd Sep 2015

sue vasey

Is it advisable to do worm test on a five yr old that has just arrived at the yard.

Danielle Cousins BSc Hons, E-SQP

Brand Manager

If you are unsure of the horse's worming history, a worm count for roundworm and ideally a Equisal tapeworm test would be a very good place to start to give you an overview of their worm population. However, you could worm them to cover both of these, and then start a worming plan afresh.

If you would prefer to do this, I'd recommend using a double dose of Embotape which contains pyrantel. This is very effective against roundworm and when given at double the dose, will also kill tapeworm. As an example, if the horse weighs 500kg, you will need to give a 1000kg dose in one go (you'll need to buy two syringes).

After this, I would then use either a single dose of Equest or a 5 day course of Panacur over winter (Dec/Jan) to target encysted redworm.